In a document processing environment it is highly desirable to achieve efficient means of processing documents. In general, higher efficiency in the processing of documents translates into lower business costs. Many businesses, such as banks, casinos, and retail stores, need to process large volumes of documents on a daily basis.
It is typical in a currency processing operation for one or several employees to prepare batches of documents which are then passed along to operators of a document processing device, such as a sorting device. For example, in a casino currency processing environment, an employee removes batches of currency from a number of gaming machines, each batch being from a different gaming machine, and then brings the batches of currency to a sorting device operator. Using the sorting device, the operator processes each batch of currency, one at a time, stopping between each batch to manually feed the next batch of documents. Furthermore, for accounting purposes it is relevant to know the source of each batch of documents, i.e., the identity of the gaming machine from which each batch of currency was removed. Thus, the operator of the sorting device must manually enter the source of each particular batch of documents.
This manual entry is slow, costly, and prone to error. Processing each batch of documents manually can be very demanding on a human operator and can provide poor and inconsistent results. Because the method relies upon human intervention, the rate at which documents can be processed during a particular day can vary unpredictably. In addition, the chance of human error is extremely high. Furthermore, the employment of two or more persons for retrieving and processing the batches of documents increases the cost associated with the processing of the batches of documents.
Another aspect of document processing that is prone to error is maintaining batch integrity, which refers to properly accounting for all documents in a batch. Batch integrity can be adversely affected when a mishap occurs, such as a document jam or a feed error, causing bills from subsequent batches to be intermingled with bills currently being processed. This intermingling can lead to operator confusion, which in turn translates into higher costs and wasted time.
For example, loss of batch integrity is a particular problem in document processing operations that process multiple batches of documents continuously. This problem is caused in part because the continuous feeding of the batches increases the potential of having documents from more than one batch present in the document processing device following a document jam or feed error. This problem is compounded by the fact that different documents can reach different areas in the document processing device at different times, making it very complicated if not impossible for the operator to determine which documents belong with which batches. When the operator attempts to recreate the original sets of batches, the potential for human error is very high, insofar as the operator can easily return a document to the wrong batch. If a batch processing operation can guarantee that when a jam occurs all of the jammed documents belong to the batch being processed, then the potential of human error intermingling documents belonging to different batches together mentioned above can be eliminated. Consequently, when the potential of such human error is eliminated, batch integrity is preserved.
Thus, there is a need for a document processing device that processes batches of documents with minimal human intervention so as to expedite the accurate processing of documents, lower costs, decrease the potential of human error, and maintain batch integrity. The present invention is directed to satisfying this and other needs.